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Please don't take this the wrong way but something is fundamentally wrong with your main character model. It looks awkwardly long. Especially the legs. I think Pepsiman looked better:

It is a similar game wouldn't you agree?
I think Pepsiman is intentionally drawn much larger than anything in his environment. It also awkwardly stands out of the environment but I think that is due to the fact that he is polygonal where as other characters are sprites. I think your character model looks elongated and just off.

I went going through youtube to share stuff with you and I remembered the first ever game I ever purchased for Playstation had rail running segments:

Please watch atleast 10 minutes as the whole video is relevant to Xenocider. Note that the entire game can be played in a little over 30 minutes. As a preteen this game kept me busy for months and it really holds up well almost 20 years later. It shows how the 32-Bit generation was so much better than the 16-bit generation.

Essentially the most fun part is a traditional 2D platformer, With awesome use of background and foreground environments. Additionally, accessing the ability to have in game dialogue made it feel like a next gen experience. Intersperse the gameplay with a ton of FMV and you feel like the whole game looks as good as the movie. Lastly, we had these annoying 3D rail running stages. I hated them cause I sucked at them and died over and over and ran out of lives. Game over.

I apologize, I went on a tangent. I just wanted to show how balanced the Hercules world looked in contrast to PepsiMan. Xenocider looks worse than that. Graphically the rail segments of Hercules are relying on sprites as well but to me, the world looks alive. It feels like your actually in the movie consequently you have a much more finished commercial quality product that is fondly remembered almost 2 decades later. Pepsiman on the other hand is a low budget game that I never bothered buying. Just spent a few minutes with it a few times at a local game store but it seems to look better than Xenocider.

Yes, you have a technically superior product. After all it is a 2017 game running on hardware that is said to be 10 times stronger than the Playstation. But the game doesn't look good.

Back to my tangent, I think having platforming stages like Hercules would widen the games appeal and would be easy to do if you have a platforming engine. I don't know if you have access to WaterMelon's Project X or Y engines but Yuan-Works are making a phenomenal platforming engine that you could consider adding in to the game or you could consider approaching Senile Team for their AotB engine which also has platforming elements. I know the whole platforming stages will never happen in the game but it will widen the games appeal.

cube_b3, I'd be more than glad to have both threads merged. If you can do it, please don't refrain yourself.

We don't have "access" to any other dev's engines, or what you seem to think are engines. The character's legs are not elongated in the model, it's just a visual effect when approaching the sides of the screen, a fisheye lens effect, so to speak.
That being said, we are always fixing and improving things, so that's something we'll have to look into as well.

I realize the platforming suggestions are to far out but watching the old Hercules gameplay brought back memories and I went into a wouldn't it be nice phase. I really hope you can fix that fishbowl perspective. It didn't work for me in Sonic X-Treme and is looking even worse here.

My suggestions for other developer engines were made so that if you would factor my laborious suggestions, networking with in the Dreamcast community would take a load off. My knowledge is limited to almost nothing but Yuan Works and Senile Team both refer to their game tech as engines.

We just came back to our homes after reuniting in Madrid for an intensive work weekend, mainly focused on turning Xenocider on a more complete, playable (and re-playable) experience. We all live in different cities, so we keep each other updated via Skype or Hangouts and do regular video-meetings when we are done with our jobs, which usually means quite late at night. But once in a while, meeting and testing things in person is worth the trip...

cube_b3 wrote:Glad you were open to it. I was afraid you'd be offended.

I realize the platforming suggestions are to far out but watching the old Hercules gameplay brought back memories and I went into a wouldn't it be nice phase. I really hope you can fix that fishbowl perspective. It didn't work for me in Sonic X-Treme and is looking even worse here.

My suggestions for other developer engines were made so that if you would factor my laborious suggestions, networking with in the Dreamcast community would take a load off. My knowledge is limited to almost nothing but Yuan Works and Senile Team both refer to their game tech as engines.

Actually, during the weekend, I showed your post to Abel and Chui and we studied Pepsiman graphical features, animation and whatnot. Mind you, Xenocider has a much higher polygon count and smoother animation, but you may be right and there's always something to learn from other titles. The fish eye effect is something we are already working on fixing.

Glad my feedback was taken as constructive.
Yes, Pepsiman is low poly count and doesn't have much in the way of polygon count. It is a PS1game afterall.
I read my post again and realized I made a terrible error as I posted the Pepsi man video twice.

The other video was suppose to be this one:

Please watch atleast 10 minutes as the whole video is relevant to Xenocider. Note that the entire game can be played in a little over 30 minutes. As a preteen this game kept me busy for months and it really holds up well almost 20 years later. It shows how the 32-Bit generation was so much better than the 16-bit generation.

Essentially the most fun part is a traditional 2D platformer, With awesome use of background and foreground environments. Additionally, accessing the ability to have in game dialogue made it feel like a next gen experience. Intersperse the gameplay with a ton of FMV and you feel like the whole game looks as good as the movie. Lastly, we had these annoying 3D rail running stages. I hated them cause I sucked at them and died over and over and ran out of lives. Game over.

I apologize, I went on a tangent. I just wanted to show how balanced the Hercules world looked in contrast to PepsiMan. Xenocider looks worse than that. Graphically the rail segments of Hercules are relying on sprites as well but to me, the world looks alive. It feels like your actually in the movie consequently you have a much more finished commercial quality product that is fondly remembered almost 2 decades later. Pepsiman on the other hand is a low budget game that I never bothered buying. Just spent a few minutes with it a few times at a local game store but it seems to look better than Xenocider.

Yes, you have a technically superior product. After all it is a 2017 game running on hardware that is said to be 10 times stronger than the Playstation. But the game doesn't look good.

Back to my tangent, I think having platforming stages like Hercules would widen the games appeal and would be easy to do if you have a platforming engine. I don't know if you have access to WaterMelon's Project X or Y engines but Yuan-Works are making a phenomenal platforming engine that you could consider adding in to the game or you could consider approaching Senile Team for their AotB engine which also has platforming elements. I know the whole platforming stages will never happen in the game but it will widen the games appeal.

Only 10 copies of the PAL edition and 18 copies of the steelbook edition are still available. So we figured we might as well start doing some tests...
Pre-order Xenocider today! http://retrosumus.com/shop/

I don't know how Transistor Highway is going to look in motion but that is a really tall order.
Downtown stages are a dime a dozen in games and they are usually expected to look phenomenal.

Right now, that screenshot is looking baron and mundane. Crazy Taxi even though it was a photo realistic game it was very bright and colorful unlike say MSR. Another risk with a downtown based stage is you have roads with turns and the fact that your running straight negatively emphasizes you'rE on rails. Even in Sonic Adventure 2's Escape from the City, I would stop at intersections to see if there was anything... So when making a highway stage, you'd need to have alternate pathways. Like, say in House of the Dead, if you saved a human, you could get a faster detour.

Last edited by cube_b3 on Tue Feb 14, 2017 3:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Phew... Ok... please note that screen shot was not even pre-alpha. 3D models are just thrown into the "blank stage code", so to speak, so they were not even properly put together yet. We had one of our video-meetings last night and the stage looks really different already.

cube_b3 wrote:Yeah, I figured it was early. But keeping with the theme of the game and an easier animation target would be to just amp up the colors and the perceived lack of details can be mitigated.

Taken care of

cube_b3 wrote:Is the sound track included on disc?

With the exception of Feet of Fury and Rush Rush Rally Racing indie games usually have the OST on disc. While they SE only serves to give you another copy of the OST.

Not exactly. The OST disc will feature all the full-lenght tracks, while the game disc will most probably feature shorter versions, some of them not even in audio track form. It all depends on programming requirements at this point

While we are hard at work on our next stage for Xenocider, we couldn't wait to share a little teaser of the amazing tune Juanjo created for it. We are pretty sure that you can see what our influences are here...

Lead programmer Chui shows off his skills playing the hardest Xenocider level he's coded so far. Reflexes and memorization are everything when you're trying to make it through the Transistor Highway. This is 100% real Dreamcast hardware!